Disneyfication

 What is Disneyfication?

 

Jean Baudrillard, a French philosopher who writes about the nature of reality, called Disneyland the most real place in America because it isn't pretending to be real. He wrote:

Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyper-real and of simulation.

That may sound far out there, but let me explain it in simpler terms. 

In the Social Sciences Disneyfication has been used to describe a consumerist trend affecting Western society. In industrialized countries like the United States the post WWII economic and population boom led to an entire culture centered around consumerism. Everything was being repackaged and marketed for sale to the masses, even cultures.

 I discussed Disneyfication in my post about the city of Cherokee in the North Carolina mountains. The National Park brought tourists to the town of natives who'd escaped the forced removal during the previous century. Street corner "Chiefs" sold the chance to pose with them for a picture. Advertising all over town sports cartoon versions of native symbols, tomahawks, teepees, totem poles and chiefs. Half of those symbols are not even representative of actual Cherokee history, they are just things that consumer culture associates with native culture and that is what the town is selling, its culture. The remaking of the town of Cherokee into a destination where tourists can experience 'authentic' cowboy and Indian shootouts, and sleep in a teepee like a 'real' Cherokee. Do me a favor and click HERE to read about Cherokee housing. (Hint, not teepees.) The remaking of a city to resemble a theme park is Disneyfication. 

It doesn't have to be a city either. For a while it was shopping centers and then neighborhoods, now it is affecting school campuses. 

Can you think of any examples of Disneyfication you've seen recently?